The US Department of Commerce? mandated the ICANN body that presently oversees domain name?s and the IANA body that oversees IP addresses. ICANN has controversially delegated some functions to WIPO? which seem to confuse trademark and domain name? rules. This is asserted by some to be taking a position on what monopolies on information should be granted globally, or simply repeating the "intellectual property" dogma of WIPO? and others.

At a major UN conference in Tunisia, agreement was reached to create an Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Given differences on freedom of speech, digital divide? and human rights between governments it was unclear to what degree this Forum could be effective. Other supporters of such a forum included the International Telecommunications Union? and various NGO?s in attendance. The rolling out of the green machine technology at the same summit including a mesh network? raised the possibility of regulating the net via mobile carrier?s, already heavily supervised:

history

Historically, the IETF set technical standards for the net via its IETF RFC process. All of the Internet Protocol definitions including HyperText Transfer Protocol? - HTTP - were defined that way. The basis of "rough consensus and working code?" was used throughout its rule.

Domain names remained a monopoly of Network Solutions Incorporated? until 2000, when it was replaced by the following:

From 2001-2005 the problems grew steadily worse as the NEW.NET? for-profit structure and the .XXX? TLD? emerged. The latter was a Canadian idea and was realized ultimately by Canadians: Craig Hubley had made na early (1994) .XXX proposal to the Brookings Institution?, recommending a per-click traffic tax on hardcore porn? to fund educational use of the Internet?, and blocking such traffic on all non-.XXX web services. By 2004 this proposal had re-emerged but with far less money going to worthwhile causes.